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Capitol Undercurrents
Political muscles--Marylou and I took a quick, end-of-session-special-session trip to her brother's place just outside of Yosemite.  That's in California where, apparently, people campaign year in and year out. I tuned into a couple of the NBA finals games where some of the sharpest elbows were thrown in political ads during the commercial breaks. Especially notable were the TV ads by California teachers who were going after Gov. Schwarzenegger for breaking a commitment on public school funding.
Some Maine solutions?--We've done a lot of looking at what other states are doing to combat obesity--especially the rising rate of obesity in children and adolescents. Some of the recommendations advanced by a s pecial commission to study public health in Maine include: checking the feasibility of restricting advertising of unhealthy foods at children under the age of 12; requiring chain restaurants to provide caloric information on menus so families can make healthy choices when dining out; and asking that state's department of transportation to spend at least 1 percent of its highway budget on shared use paths to schools.
Six of one, half a dozen of another?--The Legislative Affairs Agency sent certificates of appreciation to some Juneau school students for masks of the world they crafted and that were displayed for part of the last session in the capitol. One parent stopped by with a copy of the certificate with a picture of 'Senator' Bruce Weyhrauch, Representative Beth Kerttula,  and 'Representative' Kim Elton. I hope Bruce wasn't offended by being branded a senator given the behavior of the senate majority last session where tough legislative ethics provisions came under sustained attack by the unified majority, state employees came under sustained attack by the unified majority, and the permanent fund earnings came under sustained attack by the unified majority.
Ouch--An Anchorage radio station is sponsoring a name-that-jet contest to help  pick a name for the corporate jet the guv insists on buying to fly Alaska prisoners around, and not incidentally, have it available for his use. The name of the contest is "Fly me to Muldoon."
Phone: (907) 465-4947
Fax: (907) 465-2108
Mail: Sen. Elton, State Capitol
Juneau, AK 99801
Email:
Senator.Kim.Elton
Jesse.Kiehl
Paula.Cadiente
Web: http://elton.akdemocrats.org
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Kid's girth growth becomes an epidemic
SB199 one of my interim projects
Kids alive today may be the first generation in 200 years to have shorter life spans than their parents. So posit authors of a  study on child/adolescent obesity published a couple of months ago in the New England Journal of Medicine.
If the 'human' cost of the childhood/adolescent obesity epidemic is not compelling, consider the 'economic' costs: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer, and strokes--all common obesity outcomes--drive up health care costs which already are rising at a double digit pace and impact workplace productivity.
Add up all the young lives lost because of unsafe cribs, or pajamas not made of fire-retardant cloth, or toys that choke, or unsecured firearms, or open backyard swimming pools, or other childhood dangers, and they pale in significance to the dangers of childhood obesity. But policy makers and bureaucrats have prescribed solutions for cribs, pajamas, toys, and other singular dangers while mostly avoiding the biggie--obesity.
Why?
Steven Levitt, a brilliant young professor of economics at the University of Chicago and author of the new bestseller Freakonomics, suggests that policy makers are more compelled to address issues that have an immediate heartstring tug. Using his logic, the unfortunate and tragic death or disfigurement of an 8-year-old whose PJs caught fire in seconds is more socially compelling than any greater tragedy that unfolds over decades. That's true in spite of the fact that a handful of children have been killed by non-fire retardant nightclothes while millions are at risk of early death because of unhealthy eating habits.
Sportscaster Vin Scully once noted in a discussion about baseball that "statistics are too often used the way a drunk uses a lamp post-for support and not for illumination." Nevertheless, let's try and chew on these stats:
- 16 percent of America's children and adolescents are overweight;
- The incidence of being overweight as a child or adolescent has climbed 45 percent since 1994;
- About four times as many children are overweight now than when I was in high school;
- The Centers for Disease Control announced this year that obesity causes 365,000 deaths each year;
- Overweight children have a 70 percent chance of being overweight adults;
- 60 percent of 5- to 10-year-olds already have a risk factor for heart disease such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol and 25 percent have two or more risk factors.
In addition to physical health problems linked to obesity, there's irrefutable evidence that depression, anxiety, anger and other mental health problems that interfere with child and youth learning and socialization are linked to self-image.
So, what to do?
There is no single solution and there is no single entity that can cure the growth in girth epidemic. Not parents (as disconcerting as it may be, child peers have a co-dominant role with parents in learned behavior), not local governments, or state governments, or national governments. While no person, group or government has all the solutions; there is a role for everyone.
I'm suggesting one solution in my role as state senator. Toward the end of the session I introduced legislation that  provides an incentive to Alaska school districts that are willing to sell only healthy food and drinks in school during the time from one hour before regular school hours to one hour after regular school hours. Under SB199, school districts that switch to healthy vending machine and commissary food plans during the school day will get an additional $4 to the state's per pupil allocation (right now the per student amount is $4,919 so schools that sell healthy food in vending machines would get $4,923).
This $4 carrot, or incentive, approach gets to one of the important issues in the school vending machine/commissary debate. Proceeds from these food and beverage sales typically support school activities ranging from debate clubs to sports teams. Take away the vending machine or commissary sales, or reduce revenues because they no longer sell unhealthy amounts of fat and sugar, and you reduce support for student activities.
I don't want to hurt extracurricular activities supported by the sale of unhealthy food and drink. So, under the provisions of SB199, the $4 carrot incentive must be used to support student activities.
SB199 defines healthy food and drink using standards developed by health experts. Acceptable beverages must have at least 50 percent vegetable or fruit juices (unless the beverage has no calories and no added sweeteners). Acceptable foods must derive no more than 30 percent of the food's calories from fat (except legumes, nuts or seeds). No more than 35 percent of the food weight can be from sugar except natural sugars contained in dairy, fruit or vegetables, and food cannot contain more than 10 percent combined saturated and trans fat calories. The state school board and the commissioner of health and social services can establish additional food or beverage standards.
I've shared the draft bill with superintendents from every Alaska school district, with organizations representing a broad range of medical professionals, with health non-profit groups, and with other Alaskans and Alaska groups that may have interests or concerns. Over the course of this interim, I plan to 
work with them to identify problems or other opportunities. My goal is to have a good bill ready by the beginning of the 2006 session.
Sure there will be a cost if SB199 is adopted as now drafted. While $4 per student is significant, it still is just slightly more than 1 percent of the amount the legislature added to the per student amount in the 2005 legislative session.
But there will be a savings, too. Any incremental improvement to child/adolescent health saves a lot of money down the road. It's easy to identify the immediate cost of this bill, but impossible to quantify significant savings that accrue across the decades.
And, I'd offer, it is irresponsible to not take a beginning step that can enhance lives and cut the cost of health care.
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